


Like A Handprint On My Heart

by Pixie



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Fluff, Platonic Soulmates, Tumblr: jaegercon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 19:31:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixie/pseuds/Pixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another Jaegercon Bingo fill - this time 'Home'. More fluff, because why not?</p>
<p>Newt and Hermann are not in a relationship. They're not. They're just...well, they don't know what they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Handprint On My Heart

The first time Newton bounds into Hermann's room it's mid-argument, and with a start he realises he's probably the first person to ever be allowed in (if you can count insistently following as allowed, of course). Then Hermann starts telling him how _wrong_ he is and it flies out of mind. 

The next time is in a blind panic – a desperate scrabbling attempt to fit the key in the lock, all shaking hands and focused mind. Hermann had slipped in the lab ( _my fault, my fault, my fault_ ) and snapped his cane clean in two. He had a spare, he'd managed to grunt, and could Newton...? 

It's only the third time he finds himself in Hermann's room – this time invited, rather than following him through the threshold like a lost puppy – that he realises the only decoration in the room is a single photo of them from years ago.  
“Hermann?”  
“Mm?” he replies, sipping his tea in the most British manner Newton has ever seen.  
“Why do you have a picture of my face?”

The tea cup slides out of his grasp, spilling the contents over the floor, and Newton is instantly up, grabbing tissues and towels and mopping up the mess. “Sorry!” he shouts, all whirling energy and panic. “Sorry!” He feels a hand on the small of his back, and looks up.  
“It's okay,” Hermann says quietly. “I just didn't expect you to notice.”

Newton finishes wiping up the mess, throws the towels into the adjoining bathroom, and then sits back down on the edge of the bed, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, feet tapping the floor in a pattern that feels strangely familiar to Hermann. “So...that drift.”  
“Yes.”  
“That was...a thing that happened.” Hermann lips quirk upward on one side, and Newton beams back.  
“Very eloquent, Dr. Geiszler.”  
“I keep telling you, call me Newt. Anyway, um, there were – things. Things that you had in there that I didn't know you had in there because you're nowhere near as clever as you make out you know? I mean, if you were as smart as you like to pretend you are then _surely_ you must have noticed...”  
“Newt,” Hermann says, suddenly very serious. “What is...this?” Newton drums a beat on his knees and then sighs.  
“I don't know. It's – new, and it's scary, and it's good scary like a rollercoaster scary but it's not something I really have a language for, you know? I mean, here I was assuming I was going to work alone, die young like a rockstar, and then you come along with your stupid parka and your obsession with mathematics and next thing all I want to do is stick around, and...I don't know.”  
“Newton – you should know that I have absolutely no interest in...”  
“Sex? Yeah I noticed, and that doesn't even bother me, not even a little bit, because no offense, Hermann, it's not something I'm interested in with you either – I just...” He sighs, and starts to fidget with the ends of his sleeves. “You're in my head, Hermann, and I can't just let that go.”  
“I was going to say leaving,” Hermann says. “But your guess was also correct.” He shuffles closer, awkwardly taking one of Newton's hands in his own.  
“I guess we're stuck like this, huh?”  
“Yes, Newt, I guess we are.”

It's not a relationship, Newton insists, having fling after fling, searching for something that is. Hermann agrees – having some drift-forged connection is no reason to bind themselves to each other in that way. And yet it's their joint bed Newton crawls into at night. It's their house they hold their arguments in, their neighbours who complain when Hermann slams his cane against the wall to make his point.

Sometimes, when the night is suffocating and Newton wakes trembling and gasping for air, his mind a buzzing hive of thoughts too big for his mind to contain, he finds Hermann beside him, with his steady hands and his thoughts like a silver streak of logic, chasing the darkness away. And when Hermann's leg burns from travelling, the muscles feeling like fibres about the snap, Newton is there, opening himself to the pain, giving Hermann a pathway through their connection to share the load.

It's not a relationship, they insist to the news station. It never was, they tell Tendo. But a year passes, and another, and neither man leaves. A week before the third anniversary of the failed apocalypse, Newton vanishes. He doesn't come home that night, nor the night after, and Hermann finds his leg restless, finds himself pacing and unable to focus. _Perhaps_ , he thinks, _he found the relationship he was looking for_.

A few more days go by, and Hermann starts to worry. Perhaps it was something more sinister – perhaps Hannibal Chau decided he wanted a pet biologist, or the kaiju cults discovered their location. He rings Tendo, who seems surprised. “I thought you two weren't dating,” he needles.  
“We aren't. But I do live with Dr. Geiszler, and so his absence is unusual.”  
“He'll be fine,” Tendo says, and there's something like laughter in his voice. “Don't worry about it.”

He rings Raleigh, and Herc, and Mako – all to the same result. His worry turns into suspicion, his fear into anger. And then, three years to the day they drifted together, there's a knock on his door.  
“Hey Hermann,” Newton says, grinning. “Sorry it took so long!”  
“Where have you been?” Hermann hisses, and can't resist the urge to grab him by the arm, to confirm that he's really standing there.  
“Hong Kong.”  
“What?”  
“Are you going to let me in or not?”  
“You...you left!”  
“Temporarily!”  
“How was I to -”  
“Hermann, do you really think I would just get up and leave you? After three years?” Grumbling, Hermann follows him through to their main room, and sits down on the couch.  
“I suppose not.”  
“Only suppose?”  
“Dr. Geiszler,” he says icily, but Newton can feel the warmth hidden behind it deep in his own chest. “You are the one who keeps seeking out alternate company.”

And then Newton is sat next to him, all hope and energy. “I bought you a present,” he says, handing Hermann what looks like a box, covered in kaiju-print paper. “I think you'll like it.”  
“You went to Hong Kong for a present?”  
“Yes.” He tears the paper openly slowly, finding a small wooden box inside. “Open it!” He lifts the lid, and then looks at Newton in confusion.  
“You said...”  
“I know.”  
“But we're not...”  
“I know.”  
“But why?”  
“Because I figured what you were.” Grinning, he snatches the ring out of its place and holds it out awkwardly. “You're...you're home. Please?”  
“And what about you?” Hermann asks, letting Newton figure out which hand is his left one.  
“All sorted out.”  
“What?” He holds out his own hand, drawing Hermann's attention to his left finger. Spiralling round in simple black print is an equation.  
“Is that...?”  
“One of the basic equations you helped derive for improving the drift connection. No, I still haven't figured out what it means, and yes, it is now tattooed permanently around my finger.” Hermann looks at him, his face filled with wonder.  
“Three years, and I can still surprise you, eh, Hermann?”  
“Never stop,” Hermann whispers, smiling.  
“I don't plan to.”


End file.
